did, and there was no thought of keep-
ing the place.
The afternoon they'd first met,
Ana had been optimistic about the
property. "It's nice acreage," she said.
"Big but not too overwhelming." She
walked ahead of Richard, opening
doors, passing through rooms, turn-
ing on lights and faucets. Wearing
tailored shorts, so that her muscular
legs showed.
The second time: Richard's hands
loose on Ana's head as she gamely
kneeled. They were outside, on the
back porch, Richard's ass pressing into
the slick plastic slats of a lawn chair
as he tried feverishly to imagine some-
one watching. He said thanks, when
it was over, as Ana discreetly spat into
the grass.
"Really," Richard said. "That was
great." Ana's smile was crooked. It was
summer then, and behind them the
massed green of the trees moved in si-
lence. That was the thing about being
with married women, how hidden pock-
ets of the day were suddenly revealed.
The slightest pressure and the grid buck-
led, exposing the glut of hours. It was
only eleven and still the whole day spread
before him.
Back in the city, she came over at
strange times, carrying a gym bag that
stayed untouched by the door. Her
husband, Jonathan, was an importer
of olive oil and other things kept in
dark, cool warehouses. Ana said his
name often when she was with Rich-
ard, but he didn't mind. He was glad
for the helpless invocation of her real
life---he didn't need a reminder of the
limits, the end already visible from
the moment she had first shaken his
hand, but maybe she needed a re-
minder. The groceries she'd brought
this weekend worried him, the purity
of their domestic striving, and so did
the questions about his son, the as-
sumption that Richard was tracking
the saga of her cousin's health. How
she had made up the bare mattress
with the sheets they'd brought, eager
as a new bride.
They would go back to the city the
day after next, and Jonathan would re-
turn from wherever Jonathan had gone
and the house would sell and all shall
be well, all manner of things shall be
well---the phrase surfaced in his brain,
some hippie scrap that Pam used to
incant to herself.
I outside, the sky falter-
ing to black. Ana squeezed a drop-
per of her antibiotic into one eye
and then the other, then shut her eyes
tight. "A minute," she said, eyes still
closed. "Tell me when a minute is up."
Richard was putting the dishes
away.
"A minute," he said, after a while,
though he'd forgotten to check, and
she opened her eyes.
"They feel any better?" he said.
"Yeah," she said. "Lots." She was a
smart woman. She had sensed some shift
in his attention and was now willfully
cheerful, cool, not giving away too much.
Her bare feet kneaded the cushions.
She'd plugged in her laptop, and a menu
screen was queued up for a black-and-
white movie that he didn't want to watch.
"Someone could take down this wall,"
she said, nodding at the room, "and then
have their dining table in here."
"Someone could," he agreed.
"That's Rowan?" she said.There was
a framed photo: Rowan, a few hours
old, in Pam's arms.
"Yeah."
Ana got up to look more closely.
"She's pretty."
He wanted to tell Ana that there
was no need to catalogue Pam's attrac-
tiveness, or try to gauge Richard's feel-
ings for her---nothing residual remained.
They'd been divorced sixteen years. She
lived in Santa Barbara, had married
again and divorced again, existed only
as a voice on the telephone arranging
logistics or relaying information.
"Is he sad you're selling the house?"
Ana said.
It took him a moment. "Is Rowan
sad?"
"He must have had fun here. In sum-
mers and stu ."
Richard wiped his hands on his
pants; there were no dishtowels.
"We only came here a few times.
Rowan likes the city better, I think. I
don't think he cares."
Pam and Richard had divorced when
Rowan was two. Pam had moved to the
West Coast---really, since then Richard
saw Rowan only in summers, and then
for only the few weeks the boy wasn't at
"Everything smells like fear now."